Many products are individually packaged for sale to the ultimate consumer. Such prepackaged products, however, are typically shipped to the point of sale retailer in bulk form-- i.e., within their own shipping container. Of course, it is quite important for the product manufacturer to devise a shipping container which ensures that the prepackaged product will not be damaged in transit. It is also quite important for the product to be displayed in an efficient and aesthetically pleasing manner so as to attract consumer awareness. Oftentimes, the point of purchase retailer will physically remove the prepackaged products from their shipping container and place them on store shelves and/or in stacked island displays on the sales floor.
Those in this art have, however, endeavored to provide shipping assemblies which also serve as product displays at the point of purchase, as evidenced by U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,919,270 to Govang et al; U.S. Pat. No. 5,035,323 to Daniels et al; U.S. Pat. No. 5,016,761 to Stoddard et al; U.S. Pat. No. 4,705,162 to Kupersmit; and U.S. Pat. No. 4,638,941 to Watson. While the combined shipping and display assemblies proposed in the art are satisfactory for many prepackaged products, other products, such as prepackaged containers of flowable (e.g., fluid or granulated) product require special packaging considerations. It is therefore towards providing a combined shipping and display unit which is especially adapted for use with prepackaged containers of flowable product that the present invention is directed.
The shipping/display unit according to the present invention includes a number of vertically stacked trays supporting upright dividers which maintain separation between the product containers. When in its shipping condition, the bottom-most tray is nestably received with a pallet skirt which rests upon a conventional wooden shipping pallet. Any number of vertically stacked tray/divider assemblies will form the shipping/display unit of this invention, but preferably four such tray/divider assemblies will be provided.
To protect the product containers during shipping, each tray is provided with an individual corner support member which extends between an adjacent pair of vertically separated trays. A corner post extending the entire height of the unit is positioned at each corner of the shipping/display unit to provide additional structural support during shipping. The opposing end sections of each corner post are respectively received within the pallet skirt and an upper cap. A display board and top pad are provided between the upper tray/divider assembly and the cap. The entire unit is then "shrink-wrapped" with a suitable transparent plastics film and shipped to the point of sale retailer.
Upon receipt of the shipping/display unit, the retailer will prepare it for floor display. In this connection, the shrinkwrapped film, upper cap and corner protectors (i.e., the individual corner supports and the elongate corner posts) will be removed and discarded. The product containers will therefore be visible to the retail consumer in the form of stacked layers separated by the dividers.
To further enhance the aesthetic appeal of the display, the pallet skirt is reversed by downwardly folding its side walls so as to lie against respective vertical sides of the pallet. Reverse folding of locking tongue structures associated with an opposed pair of side walls and their reinsertion into an associated slot of an adjacent side wall will then positively lock the pallet skirt against the vertical sides of the pallet, thereby visually obscuring the otherwise unsightly pallet. A display insert having a pair of opposed feet and a central tongue element is then positioned on an edge of the upper-most tray/divider assembly. The individual product containers will thus be displayed in an efficient and aesthetically pleasing manner to the retail consumer.
Further aspects and advantages of this invention will become more clear after careful consideration is given to the following detailed description of the preferred exemplary embodiments thereof.